The present invention relates to musical instruments (e.g., pianos) equipped with pedals, such as a damper pedal, for controlling sounding members (strings), and techniques and methods for processing data related to performance operation of the pedal.
Apparatus for recording positions of a damper pedal of a piano and automatically controlling the position of the damper pedal on the basis of the thus-recorded pedal positions have been known, one example of which is a pedal position recording/reproduction apparatus disclosed in. U.S. Pat. No. 5,714,702 corresponding to Japanese Patent No, 2,993,424. The pedal position recording/reproduction apparatus disclosed in the No. 2,993,424 patent detects positions of the pedal (pedal positions) by a sensor and converts the detected pedal positions into pedal positions in an ordinary piano to record the thus-converted pedal positions. Further, the pedal position recording/reproduction apparatus disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,714,702 patent converts the recorded pedal positions into pedal positions corresponding to inherent characteristics of the piano and controls the pedal to take the converted pedal positions.
In pianos, as generally known, a plurality of component parts are disposed between the damper pedal and the dampers, and the dampers are ultimately displaced or moved by a force transmitting direction and amount of displacement, corresponding to operation of the damper pedal, being changed via such a plurality of component parts. However, with the apparatus disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 5,714,702 patent (No. 2,993,424 Japanese Patent), which detects and records positions of the damper piano, it is difficult to acutely record and reproduce positions of the dampers because displacement amounts of the damper pedal and the dampers differ from each other.